5 Best Wednesday Columns

Maureen Dowd on
Keith Richards In an election season where "some of the male candidates
could be part of the Little Rascals’ He-Man, Woman-Haters Club," The New
York Times columnist argues
an unlikely feminist icon has started to emerge: Rolling Stones
guitarist Keith Richards. Hardly the kind of praise usually heaped on
Richards, but after reading Richards's new autobiography, Dowd think it
is warranted. Compared to his fellow musicians and, indeed, Dowd argues,
the world at large, Richards represents a distinctly "chivalrous
voice." The book details how Richards took care of his mother and stayed
faithful. When he was single, Dowd notes, he gravitated towards
"strong, high-spirited women," all of whom are "accorded respect." In
the current climate, that counts for something.

Jon Keller on the
Resiliency of Deval Patrick The national political climate for Democrats
is gloomy, but party leaders should be pleased with the reelection
campaign of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, writes
the Bay State political analyst in The Wall Street Journal. A Patrick
win--while still no guarantee--would go a long way in dispelling the
notion that Barack Obama is political kryptonite. Patrick's 2006
campaign was "a dry run for many of the signature themes of the 2008
Obama campaign" and he hasn't been shy about hitting the stump with the
president. Keller credits "a personal style that has proven far
better-suited to campaigning than governing" and an "empathy offensive"
with helping Patrick weather the anti-incumbent mood.

Holman Jenkins on Searching For Villains in the Foreclosure Crisis
It's very difficult to understand the mortgage crisis without
"understanding the powerful appetite to cast borrowers as victims and
banks as villains in the housing bubble," observes
The Wall Street Journal columnist. This battle is now reaching its
climax in the "robo-signer controversy" in which homeowners who have
stopped paying for homes are allowed to live in their houses because of a
technicality in the paperwork. The Obama administration's efforts to
reduce the mortgage burden to manageable levels has succeeded in
modifying relatively few mortgages. These officials recognize that "any
program that reached out to people with the wherewithal actually to
benefit from mortgage modification might invite millions of additional
Americans to stop paying their mortgages too." The government is now
"bogged down" in hundreds of unsold houses and "getting these houses
back into the hands of responsible owners is fundamental to the solvency
of the banking system," Jenkins concludes.

Kathleen Parker on a Renewed Ordeal for Clarence Thomas After the Supreme Court Justice's wife Ginni revived the long-dormant Anita Hill sexual harassment controversy, The Washington Post columnist pens
a sympathetic portrait of Clarence Thomas. The original Hill testimony
against Thomas was only scandalous if "one is deeply sensitive to the
mention of anything sexual," Parker contends. Instead of just telling
Thomas to "get over himself" or going to a higher authority at the time,
Hill waited several years until the confirmation hearings to air her
complaints. Likewise, another former Thomas girlfriend who recently
emerged from the woodwork and told Larry King that the justice was
"obsessed with porn" is conveniently shopping her memoir. It appears
that Thomas's main "offense was being a conservative black man who had
the audacity, among other things, to suggest that affirmative action
ultimately might do harm to those it was intended to help," Parker
argues. "Let's hope he has enough spiritual reserve to survive this
second lynching -- and a big enough heart to forgive poor Ginni."

Robert Wright on Islamophobia and Homophobia Will Islam, like
homosexuality, eventually find mainstream acceptance in America? The New
York Times columnist isn't optimistic.
He points to the "bridging model" to explain the rapid change in
attitudes towards gays. "A few decades ago, people all over America knew
and liked gay people — they just didn’t realize these people were gay,"
writes Wright. "So by the time gays started coming out of the closet,
the bridge had already been built. And once straight Americans followed
the bridge’s logic — once they, having already accepted people who
turned out to be gay, accepted gayness itself — more gay people felt
comfortable coming out." Islam is not in a similar position to bridge,
which is "bad news" for those hoping America will transcend Islamophobic
notions. "The population of Muslims is so small," says Wright, "and so
concentrated in distinct regions...this is a recipe for prejudice. Being
a small and geographically concentrated group makes it hard for many
people to know you, so not much bridging naturally happens. That would
explain why Buddhists and Mormons, along with Muslims, get low
feeling-thermometer ratings in America."